Johnny Depp's Mother Dies After Long Illness

Johnny Depp’s mother has died.

Betty Sue Palmer died on the morning of Friday, May 20 in Los Angeles after a long illness, ET has learned. She was 81. 

In 2004, Depp brought his mother to the Academy Awards, when he received his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

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In 2012, Palmer had reportedly been admitted to the ICU at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. More recently, in 2014, Depp was spotted taking his mother and his wife, Amber Heard, to dinner.

Depp had a close relationship with his mother. The 52-year-old actor has a tattoo of her name, “Betty Sue,” inside a heart on his left upper arm that he reportedly got in the late ‘80s, and in 1995, he purchased a 43-acre Kentucky farm for his mother, spending nearly $1 million.

In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, Depp spoke about his mother’s difficult upbringing.

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"My mother was raised in a shack, in the wilds of Appalachia, where the toilet was an outhouse,” he said at the time. “She used to say she did the same things that her mom did -- and her mom certainly didn't know any better. With my kids, they're told 75 times a day that they're loved. One thing I know is they feel loved and secure and happy and needed and necessary and a part of something."

During his press tour for Black Mass, Depp shared his mother's priceless advice when it came to dealing with bullies at school as a young child.

"She'd come from nothing but hillbillies and she said, 'OK, here's the deal. Next time anybody puts their hands on you, pick up a brick and lay them out'. And I've taken that advice ever since," he told Nottingham Post in November 2015.

Depp, in the middle of an Alice Through the Looking Glass press tour, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, days after the death of his mother, where he surprised Pinkand kissed Jimmy Kimmel on the lips. Earlier that day, Heard filed for divorce after one year of marriage and is seeking spousal support.